Categories
Design Stores

More from Yoshioka for Swarovski

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Dezeen posts additional photos of Tokujin Yoshioka‘s work on the new Swarovski Ginza store, that opened this week. Yoshioka will also be contributing to Swarovski’s installation at the Milano Salone later this month.

Categories
Art Books Events

TABlog: Art Fair Tokyo

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Ashley Rawlings interviews Misa Shin, Executive Director of Art Fair Tokyo 2005 (this year’s edition takes place this weekend), on TABlog. The interview is an excerpt from Chin Music Press’ ART SPACE TOKYO, which goes on sale next week.

Tonight I’m heading to the opening of the 101TOKYO art fair. Can’t wait!

UpdateAnd here’s a piece on Japan Today covering all of this week’s big art events.

Categories
Design Web

iGoogle Museum

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Following last month’s introduction of downloadable banners for your iGoogle homepage, Japanese online shopping network ZOZO makes it easy, and fun, to browse through all of the available banners in a slick flash interface that simulates a trip to the museum. Via Imprint Talk.

Categories
Books Manga Stores

Bookoff Offers to Pay Manga Creators

As reported by Anime News Network:

Bookoff Corporation, Japan’s largest used bookstore chain, has reportedly offered to pay 100 million yen (about US$1 million) to the Copyright Network for Comic Authors in the 21st Century, The Japan Writers’ Association, and other creators’ associations. According to the newspapers who first learned of this offer on March 31, the offer is intended to address complaints from these organizations that the growing used-book market has affected new book sales. This is the first known specific offer of payment from bookstores to these organizations. The comic authors’ group was one of the groups listed in the “Stop! Fan-Subtitles” notice that appeared in Tokyo International Anime Fair 2008.

Read the rest of the article here.

Categories
Anime Games Manga

Neojaponisme: Root of Otaku

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What exactly was the importance of Akio Nakamori’s new column that appeared in a little-read weekly soft-core porno comic (MANGA BURIKKO) back in 1983? “Otaku no Kenkyu” marked the first use of a word in a context we now know so well. Matt Alt translates that column for Neojaponisme.

Categories
Books

Urawaza

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Lisa Katayama’s book, URAWAZA: SECRET EVERYDAY TIPS AND TRICKS FROM JAPAN has just been released. You may know Lisa from her Tokyomango blog, but she’s also a contributor to the io9 blog, and writes for WIRED as well. It was actually a piece she wrote for WIRED, on the urawaza phenomenon, that spawned the idea for the book.

Also, if you want to make a video of you performing some of the tips found inside, Lisa would love to get them to post on YouTube.

Categories
Design

FTC and Artless

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I haven’t ridden a skateboard since my early teens, but man, these boards designed by Shun Kawakami of Artless sure make me want to give it another go, or at least just own one. You can get them at the FTC Tokyo Store. More photos from the release exhibition here.

Categories
Art Events

ABSENT CAFE

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Head to the Marunouchi Building to check out Assistant‘s Megumi Matsubara and Hiroi Ariyama’s “ABSENT CAFE” installation, part of “Marunouchi Art Weeks 2008.

For Marunouchi Art Weeks, Megumi Matsubara & Hiroi Ariyama (assistant) present “ABSENT CAFE”, an installation mutating a cafe in MarunouchiBuilding into ambiguous absence using a special kind of film. The installation is accompanied by Absent Symposium where panelists are absent. The event is to be participated via internet & 3000 postcards around the city, through conversation with an absent e-mail address.
Categories
Art Books

Dinky-Bloc

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Let me point you to Dinky-Bloc, an indie publisher based in Cape Town, and their first release, THE KINEMA POST, by author Hilary Maraney. It’s linked to media brand Chocolate Cake Productions. You’ll notice the use of Japanese on the site, and according to Ben from Chocolate Cake, “the book is soon to be promoted and marketed in Japan, with the metaphysical levels inherent in the book referring to the Japanese play (kabuki and benshi).” Then again, I like this explanation from the site: “dink-bloc is edo-period inspired // O-NIPPON!!”